Various home appliances such as a laundry treatment machine, a refrigerator, an air conditioner, a TV and a rice-cooker are used in a home. The home appliances are designed so that a user can conveniently use and operate the home appliances, and efforts are continuously made to improve functions of the home appliances.
Among these home appliances, laundry treatment machines are divided into a top loading type in which laundry is input into a drum from the top of the laundry treatment machine and a front loading type in which the laundry is input into the drum from the front of the laundry treatment machine according to laundry input methods. In both the two types, the drum for receiving the laundry is rotated to sequentially and selectively perform washing, rinsing, dewatering and drying of the laundry, thereby treating the laundry. Users selectively purchase and use these laundry treatment machines for the sake of convenience.
The laundry treatment machine can be divided into a washer, drier, refresher, etc. The washer removes dust from laundry using chemical reaction of a detergent dissolved in washing water, friction between the washing water and the laundry, generated by the rotation of a drum or pulsator, and physical reaction caused by water current. The drier dries the laundry using hot or cold wind. The refresher removes wrinkles of the laundry using steam, and sterilizes and deodorizes the laundry. In recent years, a washer with a drying function, a washer with a refreshing function, etc. can be easily seen in the market.
Home appliances are configured and produced with only information on basic operations, regardless of their types.
An operating program of a home appliance is determined in a product manufacturing process. However, it is impossible to update the operating program for the purpose of further function improvement or to delete the no longer used operating program and add a new operating program.
Therefore, if an improved technique is developed with the development of technologies, consumers will desire to use the technique. However, there is a problem in that the consumers cannot use the technique without replacing conventionally used home appliances with up-to-date products.
Particularly, to obtain the optimal washing performance, the laundry treatment machine should perform washing on laundry in an appropriate washing course according to a state of the laundry, such as a degree of contamination of the laundry or kind of the laundry. To this end, it is necessary that a user should exactly understand the state of the laundry. However, there is a limitation in exactly understanding the state of the laundry with only the user's sense. Although the user can exactly understand the state of the laundry, it is difficult to determine an optimal washing course according to the state of the laundry, understood by the user.
In case of a commercial laundry treatment machine, a user uses the laundry treatment machine after paying a certain charge for the use of the laundry treatment machine. However, the usability of the laundry treatment machine is limited with only functions provided to the laundry treatment machine, and a credit card payment system or cash payment means for charge payment should be added to the laundry treatment machine.
In a case where the operation of a home appliance is abnormal, it is difficult to confirm the state of the home appliance without contacting a service center and receiving a check on the home appliance from a service technician, and time and cost for the check increase. Therefore, it is required to develop a method capable of increasing the usability of a home appliance and easily checking the state of the home appliance by using a generally used device linked with the home appliance.